Dividend: Romance Of The Three Telcos – Singtel, Starhub & M1

Telcos have been the traditional favourite investment choice for many dividend investors.

Since the news of the 4^th Telco entry and the potential heighten competition from Netflix on the pay-TV segment, share prices of the existing 3 listed telcos in Singapore have not been doing well, particularly from September 2016.

From January 2016 to October 2017, the share price of M1 & Starhub have retreated by more than 30% and 24% respectively while Singtel is relatively resilient, edging up by 6.2%

Investing in Singapore Telcos

Without delving into their operational performances and speculating about the future, let’s run some quick trailing twelve month (TTM) numbers to see how each Telco stacks up against one another.

Company	Share Price	Dividend (cts)	Dividend yield	EPS (cts)	PE	ROE	P/B	Debt/ Equity	*Dividend payout ratio	*Free cashflow/ share cts)
Singtel	3.76	17	4.5%	23	16.3	14%	2.1	0.34	74.8%	11.93
Starhub	2.68	19	7.1%	17	15.8	96%	11.7	2.48	110%	5.19
M1	1.785	11	6.2%	14	12.8	35%	4.3	1.15	77.6%	10.76

Reference: MorningStar dated 19 Oct 17                       
* Indicates calendar year-end data information

In terms of financial matrices, it seems that Starhub scored the worst among the three due to its highest debt ratio and dividend payout ratio exceeding both EPS and free cashflow. This implies that the current rate of dividend payment might not be sustainable for Starhub.

Conversely, Singtel has the strongest balance sheet (lowest debt ratio) and while its PE seems to be the highest, its Price-over-Book ratio is the lowest among the three telcos. So it would mean the price that the investors are paying for Singtel are backed by more assets. Also, Singtel has the headroom capacity to gear up its balance sheet further should it need to and still could maintain its dividend payment (note that Singtel’s free cashflow/share for FY17 was 17.36cts and in the current period, it has received S$1.1bil in proceeds from Netlink IPO)

In conclusion, it seems that the financials of Singtel is rather strong and it has probably the best ability to sustain its current dividend among the three telcos.

On another side note, all three companies have engaged in share buy-backs as their share prices declined over 2016 - 2017. Let’s us take the hindsight view of the outcome:

Interestingly, despite larger amounts spent on buy-backs, the share prices of M1 and Starhub continued to decline further. M1 which utilized the highest amount of S$28M on share purchases, saw its share price still decline 26% below its average price paid. For this year, Starhub seems to have “thrown in the towel” and stopped buying back its shares to-date 2017 while Singtel actually increases its share buyback this year, but spending a modest amount of only S$4.7M vis-à-vis its market capitalization (probably main purpose of Singtel's buy backs is for its employee stock option scheme?).  

Stock Sniper's Portfolio For September 2017

Read about Stock Sniper's Portfolio HERE

 

Transactions For Sept 17:
1. Goldpac: Added more  at lower price than initial purchase price after the analysis of the half year results 

Reasons for purchase:
- Taking the opportunity in weakness of share price to add more after sell down in the aftermath of its first half results. Revaluation gains/losses are non-operating in nature. Operationally, its results seem satisfactory
-  Management announced more details in its future plans to develop its Fintech business. The Fintech and smart payment wearable businesses could be a wildcard for future growth
- Strong innovation capability and leadership. Read Goldpac: Scored Double First As Selected Provider for New OTO Initiatives To Improve the Banking And Payment Ecosystem
- Trading at around 2x ex-cash PE. Valuation updated HERE

What I might not like:- The overseas revenue contribution is still small

2. Hopefluent: Added more at higher price than initial purchase price an analysis of the half year results

Reasons for purchase:- Better than expected half year results despite the property cooling measures imposed by the local government
- All business segments are growing well
- Huge increase in interim dividend. I love it!
- Co-founders continued to purchase large quantities of shares from open market at higher price
- Still high MOS with Net cash/share at HK$2.18. Valuation updated HERE

What I might not like:
- Possible increase in credit risks exposure from its growing Financial Services business. However, management expressed optimism in this business and the risks are controllable. Need to watch this business carefully going forward.
- Possible more property cooling measures? But I ready to accept this risk since this is to make the market growth more orderly and sustainable over long term. Share price weakness from such measure may even offer opportunity to buy the shares at cheaper price. 
From the above two transactions during the month, it seems that I have averaged down on Goldpac and averaged up on Hopefluent. Does dollar cost averaging work? Well, I like to find out too. We shall review this strategy in time to come.  

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